HARTFORD, Conn. - The Lordstown made Cruze helped push Chevrolet up five spots this year on the Consumer Reports’ Annual Brand Reliability Survey.

The newly released report ranks the 2016 Cruze at the top of the class of all compact cars.

The survey characterized the reliability of the redesigned Cruze as “stellar”.

Although Asian brands continue to dominate this year's survey, Buick has become the first domestic brand in more than three decades to earn a place in the top three most reliable brands.

There was trouble, too, for one of the imports: Honda’s popular Civic model proved to have “much-worse-than-average” reliability due to problems with its power equipment and infotainment systems. The Civic was North American Car of the Year for 2016.

Buick, General Motors’ near-luxury brand, has been hovering in the top 10 of CR’s brand reliability rankings for the past few years. But CR’s latest findings show Buick has joined Lexus and Toyota on the podium for the first time since the organization began tracking brand performance in the early 1980s. Chevrolet ranks as the second-best domestic brand and is in 15th place overall among the 29 brands covered.

Consumer Reports first published its annual brand reliability rankings in 2001.